Balaam & Mary: a convo

I don't know why I wrote a middle section to the beginning that I shared yesterday. I hope that my next post will prove to be the end of this chapter, becuase it's getting too [adjective].

[I got tired of graffiti-ing tygers onto junk ads, so, for the next few days, the obligatory images that accompany these announcements will be just lazy attempts at hand-drawing copies of ad photos with felt tip marker.]

P.S.

In other news: my Public Private Diary is fully printed; also I made a list of my latest novels that have been printed but not included in any collection.

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Now the legal team of King Lush-Green ends up delivering the aforementioned message to Professional Prophet Balaam. And Balaam answers them as follows:

“Lodge here this night. Stay in my guest rooms. Lo, I keep an entire suite of chambers at the ready so that traveling lawyers may spend the night at my house; for I am so frequently visited by legal experts — whole teams, on the norm — and I love your type’s company. I have commanded my slaves to wait upon ye. And I will think over what ye have asked of me, and I will bring ye word again, in the early morning . . . or, rather, late afternoon (for I think that, on the morrow, I shall sleep in).”

Thus King Lush-Green’s lawyers abode with Balaam.

And this Balaam had a familiar spirit who would often visit and nag him; and this spirit’s full title was Bloody Mary Magdalene of the New Age. And she was so popular that they even named a cocktail after her, which was made with tomato-vegetable juice and vodka; also Worcestershire sauce, creamy hot horseradish, tabasco sauce, and freshly ground black pepper. Plus a bonus amount of vodka, and a few generous splashes of extra vodka. And there was no end to the manner of garnishes that one could add to this beverage. Yet, to give an idea of how mad the gods on Olympus were for this spirit, so that you can understand the amount of sway that Ms. Magdalene (who was, incidentally, the wife of Christ) exerted over their upper management, it should be noted that the chief executive Jehovah preferred the censored form of this drink, known as the Virgin Mary; which is basically the same recipe listed above, minus the pickle-infused vodka. (Can you believe that? Why leave that out—that’s the very best part! But that’s how tense relations are among the gods, to this day.) Even Vampyre Jehovah from my other fake novel abstained from ordering a Bloody Mary, when all of us vampyres went out for steak tartare; instead, he still requested a Virgin. (I try to mention this fact in all these myths that I write, just to rib Jehovah. We’re camerados.) My guess is that it’s because his own brother died of alcoholism, so he prefers to stay away from the stuff — he desires to remain in strict control of all of his business. But I think that Astro Jehovah from my fake space-novel might have finally come around on this issue; the truth is that I can’t recall what happens in that scroll . . . Perhaps I’m composing these scriptures too holily.

Anyway, so this Magdalene of Blood, after whom the famous cocktail was christened, visited Balaam and began to pester him as usual; and she snapped in a raspy whisper: “What men are these with thee?”

And Balaam answered his familiar spirit: “These be the lawyers of King Lush-Green. He sent me his team of legal specialists. They just briefed me on a secret mission that the King desires for me to undertake. I have the fax of his message, right here in my breast-pocket . . .”

“Wait; this is farcical,” exclaims Bloody Mary. “You say he composed a fax, but then he sent his goons to deliver the oracle afoot? Why on earth would the fool not simply fax the fax?”

“Cuz I’ve never even owned a fax machine,” sez Balaam, blankly.

Bloody Mary Magdalene of the New Age stares at Balaam in stupefaction for the space of an hour.

“I can easily get you a fax machine,” sez Bloody Mary, in a voice as calm as an unexploded powder keg. “I did not know that your office lacked this item.”

Balaam looks sheepish.

The translucent phantom of Mary now takes a deep breath and sez: “Go on — I can resist the temptation to break forth upon your person. Finish telling me what the King told you.”

Balaam bows and begins to skim the fax for the spirit: “Alright, so, he sez here that two beasts recently escaped from the zoo . . . or, no: the jungle — apparently there is a Tyger and a Panther on the loose, both irradiant and skulking the outskirts of our jurisdiction. The King fears that these strays will end up sucking all the salt out of our sea, for they’ve already drunken deeply of it; also, he is worried that they’ll deprive our Wasteland of waste, so that we’ll be left with just a regular boring farmland irrigated by freshwater. And this would be dull to drive past in an automobile, because the only scenery that shall exist are cornfields and other crops, richly flourishing. (For plants are likely to grow here again, if the beasts do transform our desert into a garden.) The King would prefer to maintain the status quo of barrenness, as that’s the state whence his power derives. But I’m sorta reading between the lines here; the fax only mentions the fret about our local lake’s desalination. — Oh, and the King is also concerned about the fact that the beasts’ divine friendship remains undocumented.”

“OK,” Mary gazes upward in either piety or frustration, “so, what does he want you to do?”

Balaam scans the rest of the fax and murmurs: “Um, it sez here that he desires me to curse the cats (he refers to them as ‘tourists’, ha!) cuz he doesn’t think our police are militarized enough to quell the threat that they present. In short, it seems that he wants me to go seek out this pair, this Tyger and this Panther, and to subject them to a session of deep healing: The King requests that I bring my resting bells (I assume that’s what he means by ‘Singing Crystal Bowls’) and that you, O Mistress Mary, by way of hypnosis, should lure these lovers from their companionship’s illegal bond and inflict them with a proper bond of mind-forged manacles; also addict them to the pursuit of money. The King even goes so far as to request that we swap out the orientation of our magic from good to evil, ‘just this once’, lest these felines entice the populace to adopt their lifestyle of easy love and simple happiness.”

The spirit of Bloody Mary Magdalene of the New Age hovers listening to Balaam relay King Lush-Green’s oracle. About halfway thru the above recount, she begins slowly shaking her head side to side in dissent. Then, when Balaam stops speaking, she immediately replies:

“Thou shalt not go along with this; thou shalt not curse the cats: for they are blessed. I feel a warmth in my loins about this, and that bodes ill for the King. I’m sorry that he so desperately wishes to maintain a hold on his rulership, but sometimes it’s just better to admit defeat. Events could turn ugly.”

(While this conversation between Balaam and the spirit of Mary is taking place, Myala and I are still in the alleyway where we stopped to loafe. There are so many spray-painted works by underground artists here — everything from mini-messages to massive murals — that we remain content to recline in admiration: gazing, awe­struck.)